Third bear sighting this week in SLO

June 17, 2011

For the third day in a row, a black bear was spotted in San Luis Obispo foraging for food. [KSBY]

Friday morning, a neighbor and someone delivering papers saw a black bear in a neighborhood located on the north side of SLO at about 3:15 a.m. The bear was knocking over trash cans along Flora and Sydney Streets.

The day before, a black bear was seen in the same neighborhood shortly after midnight. On Wednesday, a black bear broke into a chicken coop and ate a chicken before heading over to an avocado tree for desert.

In 2010, the California Department of Fish and Game hired trappers to catch a black bear that was frequenting the same neighborhood. They were unsuccessful.

On Thursday, state officials said trapping the bear would be ineffective. As a precaution, officials are warning people in the area to store their trash in bear proof containers, keep pet food indoors, remove bird feeders and to put electric fences around fruit and nut trees.

Also, placing bells on your shoelaces helps alert the bears when you’re walking in their area. This will help in not surprising them, encouraging a possible attack.

If you’re unsure if you have bears in your neighborhood, the best way to tell is keep an eye out for their crap. It’s really easy to tell if it’s bear crap as it has little bells in it and smells just like pepper spray.

When no bells available at the campsite, we use to just wear our keys on a carbiner on our belt holders, it jingles when we walk.. Always seen droppings on trails but never seen any where they have rummaged or prowled, only track or paw marks.

Animal rights people are going to have a field day with that idea. Pepper spray in the eyes. Better aim for the butt and hope the bear doesn’t have an open wound there. He may yelp but he will still have you for lunch. Better yet carry a big heavy club and wish him happy birthday with it. Then run like hell. No faster, he’s right behind you!

Always travel with a friend and be the one carrying the club. You don’t really have to worry about outrunning a wild predator like a bear, all you have to do is run faster than your companion. A little “Tonya Harding” style thump to your friend’s knee as you flee and you’re home free.

I am deathly afraid of bears. They can actually eat a person if they are really hungry. Makes me sick. Kill them or move them before they come up to where I live. They run much faster than I can. Thanks. Catch them before they chow down on a resident in SLO.

Bears, lions and coyotes are common species that inhabit most, if not all of this county. We have chosen to live amongst them and better get used to seeingall of them this time of year.
The frequency of sightings goes up as the game and predators migrate through historic funnels and move closer to human development because the usual water supplies start to dry up and food is getting more scarce as summer approachs. Food and water is abundant in all of the communities.
As has been stated in another post, SLO county is also one of the few counties with higher populations of these animals yet does not allow hunting of bears as a means of control. Lions are protected state wide with no hunting allowed and are seeing an increase in their populations as well.
Many people move here because of the rural atmosphere and the climate, just like the bears. 75 or 80 years ago there were few if any black bears in this county. Grizzlies were the native species and black bear normal habitat was contained to the Sierrras, Cascades and the northern coastal mountains and the grizzlies were the top predator controlling the numbers of black bears and lions. The last grizzly in CA was killed in the 20’s and ever since the black bears have migrated south along the Sierras, through the Greenhorn Mountains, the Tehachapy Mountains and down into the Los Padres National Forest.
Hunting as a means of control has been proposed and voted down twice in recent years and many measures including trapping and bear fences(like those being built along Highway 101) are being tried, but the most common reaction to citizen 911 calls of a bear or lion sighting is LEO responding and it almost always ends badly for the bears or the lions in death by shooting or tranquilizers and transportation.
They are here now and growing in numbers, better get used to it or move back to the big city…

I think the Fish & Game might have limits as to how far they can transport and relocate the bears. They probably think that he will come back or seek out another neighborhood it they relocate him within the county, but heck, this is a big county? I sure don’t want them to kill the bear, gov always creates so much red tape.